


I Found You, Flightless Bird

by getyouwhateverthepayne



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Friendship/Love, Inspired by Music, M/M, Marriage, Sad Harry, Tags Are Hard, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:09:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getyouwhateverthepayne/pseuds/getyouwhateverthepayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry has some problems and Niall kind of has this thing for ending up wherever Harry goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Found You, Flightless Bird

**Author's Note:**

> i posted this on my tumblr like 8 months ago but i had a day off school and decided to add on some. hopefully you guys like it even though it's kinda sad and it's probably terrible! yay!
> 
> the song this oneshot is named after is iron & wine's flightless bird american mouth

_"NO! Please, I didn't mean it, just, just wait-."_

_But the music's too loud, pounding and thumping and overpowering everything, and the lights are off and people are shoving and dancing and he's getting lost in the tumble, everything in slow motion and his eyes are searching and he's pushing through people and jumping over the couch but where did he—_

\---

It's quiet.

Harry picks up his steaming red mug from the table. It’s a cloudy day, the kind that makes everything seem a little bit gray, and the early morning chill of the outside is steadily seeping in through unseen cracks in the walls and floors of his small apartment. A guitar pick sits on the floor, in the corner, and it has been there a very long time and he never moves it. His eyes fall on it now.

Weak sunlight is glinting off the barely-there cobwebs that surround it. A single second, and gone. Gray again.

He wraps his hands around the ceramic mug and pulls his legs under him and rests an elbow against the arm of the couch that he’s sitting on, and he proceeds to stare at the wall. White, it's white and plain, and a single framed oil painting of a bowl of cherries hangs alone above a couple dark scuff marks that edge the molding, and Harry doesn't know how they got there. His sweater is too big as he shifts on the cushions, its once-soft cashmere now covered with stains - brown and yellow and blue, like ugly, fading bruises. And there’s a hole in one of his socks, too, and there are bags under his eyes - real bruises this time - but he doesn’t really notice them.

Or if he does, he doesn’t seem to mind.

He stares at the wall a little more, as he’s not planning on doing anything today, and then he looks out the window but doesn’t see anything except the fogged-up pane and the beads of condensation, and this makes him feel a little bit claustrophobic, just a little. Like he’s in a box of some sort and he’s stuck and he can’t quite see out, but he doesn’t really want to move, either.

This is not the first time this boy has sat here, on his couch, staring.

This is definitely not the first time he has sat alone. Alone, alone.

It's quiet.

He sniffs. He drinks a sip from his mug, pressing his cool lips to the rim, and he tries to focus on the taste of the tealeaves instead of the fact that he’s thinking he can smell cologne, surrounding him like the invisible wearer is enveloping him in an ambrosial embrace. Musky and sweet but faint. He sniffs a second time.

And then it’s happening again.

“Fuck,” he breathes. He’s tired of this.

He’s tired of glaring at the ground, furrowing his eyebrows, tightening his grip on his mug and grinding his teeth but having it happen anyway, a gentle plink of a small drop of water rolling off the slope of his nose and into his tea. It sounds like a gunshot.

The smell is gone. He doesn’t know why that makes him feel so sad.

Harry angrily wipes a hand across his face, wiping away the moisture and pretending it hasn’t happened. He has done this many times before.

Just a few breaths, just a few seconds and it’ll pass. He vainly attempts to convince himself, to soothe his mind, that in just a couple more heartbeats he’ll be oka–

But then there’s a knock on his door and he jumps up fast, really fast, because this part hasn’t ever happened before, his mug clattering to the ground and cracking and smashing and falling to pieces, forgotten as Harry runs as fast as he can to the door because no one should ever be knocking on his door.

He hears a voice, a male voice, and he nearly falls over. “Open up,” the voice says, “I don’t have my key.”

There’s only one thing on his mind as he’s running over the carpet and sliding on the wooden floor and he doesn’t know what it is but it is filling up every corner and orifice of his mind and body, his thoughts a conscious stream consisting only of it, ecstatic hopeful anticipation for something, and he wrenches open the door with the sort of desperation that would be embarrassing if he wasn’t so desperate.

But there’s no one there when he opens it, no one, and Harry’s confused and angry and looking around wildly before he sees the man whose voice it must have been – someone blonde and scrawny and not at all it – standing outside another door a bit down the hall with a newspaper in his hand and an odd look on his face and -

Oh yeah, of course the knock wasn’t it. That wasn’t the knock he’d been waiting for…had he even been waiting for a knock?

His therapist was right, this time, even if she didn’t say it in so many words, that maybe he is going a little bit insane. Maybe this is what depression ultimately does to you.

The person-down-the-hall’s mouth slackens, staring at Harry as if he’s some sort of terrible, jarring injury of his own that he just can’t seem to look away from, possibly because now Harry is biting his bottom lip so hard he thinks he can almost taste blood.

It's still very quiet.

Harry’s eyes close, slowly, deliberately, his eyelids fluttering with the effort, and neither of the two boys in the hallway really understands what he’s doing. Harry’s not thinking right. When he hears the boy’s feet shift on the carpet, he blinks his eyes open again fast, starting to breathe erratically, his chest heaving a little as he holds down the gasp that wants to rip him open. Rip what open, he's not sure.

He's not thinking right.

And it appears, at least from Harry's peripheral vision, as if the boy down the hall is getting more and more uncomfortable, his eyes darting around the hall, looking anywhere but Harry’s face.

The boy shakes the doorknob surreptitiously, eager to slip away, almost as if Harry’s not-okayness is some sort of eerie, contagious thing that’ll reach across the space between the two of them and wrap around his own state of mind.

But Harry doesn’t care about any of this and struggles to control his breathing instead because he just has to stop, stop, just stop, he has to stop thinking, he has to stop crying. God, why is he still crying? And he’s such an idiot because he should’ve known. He should’ve known. This is all this is. There’s nothing he’s waiting for.

He takes a measured breath in, out and in, and he lets his shoulders fall before he takes a single step back inside and closes the door quietly.

\---  
   
Harry walks slowly that day.

Like he does every day, really, or at least the days that he goes outside. His dull olive eyes trace the familiar cracks in the sidewalk to avoid the even more familiar faces of the people around him, and he makes his way (because he doesn't exactly own a car) toward the quaint little downtown grocery store that’s a couple blocks from his tiny flat. Barely flowering leaves brush against his arm as he passes by the overgrowth of an empty lot, its rusting chain link fence nearly hidden by green.

He really only needs to pick up a carton of milk and then he’ll be done with it, but it’s still taken him the better part of an hour to work up the energy to go outside.

And he didn’t exactly bother changing his sweater, so the visible stains from yesterday leave him feeling a little self-conscious – not quite enough to care, but his sleeves are still pulled down to his knuckles and his fingers are clutching the ribbed trimming tightly as if that’ll somehow hide the mess he’s in. And it’s not until he’s halfway there that he realizes he’s forgotten one of his shoes, when his filthy grey sock is suddenly sopping because he’s stepped in a puddle. Dirty water splashes up and darkens the bottom of his trousers as an older man shuffles past him, edging around him and stepping out onto the street to get by. Harry hadn't noticed him coming. The old man's eyes, he feels them, are staring into his back as he walks away.

Because the worst part about it, really, leaving his house, is that his village is so small. He can always feel the eyes. The quick glances up of every single pair he passes, the furtive looks once he's gone.

That’s why he looks down all the time. Because he knows they are looking at him, and he knows why. He’s the depressed boy. The once happy boy. The boy who used to mow their lawns and drop off their newspapers and now rarely ever shows his face and lives alone, come back after uni, his parents gone and sister living on the other side of the world and never calling home.

He doesn't get blank looks from the people in town; there is no confusion, no real curiosity – he would have preferred that, really; there is only a vague, quiet pity. Because they know, of course, they know, and they don’t care all too much, but they still know.

All of them. They know why he avoids them, and he knows that they know and they all know everything, more than he thinks, and no one ever does anything about it.

They know why Harry looks the way he does, why his face has grown gaunt and why his hair has gone limp and why his once always smiling features have become grim and flat over time.

He’ll get the usual sad eyes and sympathetic smile from the cashier when he gets to the grocery store counter and only puts down that one carton of milk.

And the only confusion that is ever in the cashier’s eyes – or in the eyes of anyone in town, really – is why he isn’t getting any better.

It’s been a while, everyone always tells each other in hushed whispers over late night drinks in stuffy pubs, feeding each other’s insatiable appetites for scandal over bangers and mash, and the boy should have gotten better by now. It’s been so long, they always say a little sadly, as if Harry’s one of their own progeny who’s turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

And, you know, it’s a little bit wearying for Harry because since every single last person in the entire damned village knows every single last detail, they look even more carefully, analyze even more closely, and they have nothing better to do than to trivialize the misfortunes of his own wretched life through their endless gossip.

It’s quite impossible to live when everyone knows everything you do. That was what he had hated about this stupid, small town.

No, no. This is what Harry hates about this stupid town.

He isn’t going to think about this right now.

He scuffs his lone shoe across the pavement.

Since his eyes are still glued to the ground, he nearly walks past the grocery store, but Harry sees the blue of the storefront and stops abruptly, spins himself around, steels his jaw and goes in, fumbling a little on the step.  
   
 --- Previously---  
   
Fucking fucker goddamn Christ.

Niall Horan is twenty-four years old, and he really fucking needs a change of pace because his job fucking sucks and he really hates London. Really, really hates it. Like fucking a lot.

He doesn’t know what he was thinking moving here, anyway.

(Well, he does. But that reason moved back up north a couple years ago and isn’t around anymore.)

It’s Wednesday, it’s early spring, and it’s freezing cold. Fantastic. And the Starbucks down the street was closed for god-knows-what-reason this morning, so he didn’t even get his fucking nutritious blueberry muffin and had to go to work essentially malnourished because all he’d had the night before was Ramen fucking Noodles.

But it’s when he’s pulling his bicycle from the alley that he’d stashed it in earlier that day (he also really fucking hates cabs – why in the hell do people trust strangers to drive them around, anyway?), while he’s coming home from another fucking day interning for the same fucking company, that he gets the call.

A bright, cheery Marimba in the middle of cloudy fucking London.

He has to drop his satchel on the fucking wet ground to answer.

Jesus fucking fuck.

…Fuck.

(Niall’s in that kind of mood in which aggressively thinking the word ‘fuck’ is very therapeutic. You know, for the soul, and all that.)

“What?” he demands brusquely, kicking his bag for no good reason. Its strap flops pathetically into a puddle, and he starts grumbling nonsensically.

“Niall? That you?” comes a confused voice.

“Yeah. W’d’you want.”

“Niall, it’s me! Liam! From university, remember?”

“Liam?” Niall stops and smashes the phone up to his ear because there’s no way he heard what he thinks he just heard.  “You mean school Liam? Like, Liam goddamn Payne?”

“Yeah, man,” says Liam goddamn Payne on the other end. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine – Jesus, I haven’t talked to you in almost a year, Payno, what’ve you been doing?”

“I went to Australia for a bit,” he exclaims. “Got a job there, traveled all around. Crazy, yeah.”

“No way, Australia, really?”

“Yeah, me and Lou went. Remember him? The footballer?”

“‘Course I remember Lou, best on our team!” Niall nods in acknowledgement as if Liam can see him.

“Yeah, yeah, me and him went for the surfing and then decided to stay for a while. Bussed tables to get by, all that crap.”

“I can’t believe it,” Niall laughs, now shaking his head. “You – Mr. Liam Payne, Mr. Careful – just jetting off to another country! I always knew Lou would bring you to the dark side. Got any tattoos yet?”

Liam breathes out through his nose in laughter. “Funny. But how are you doing in London, man? Got that job you applied for?”

And suddenly Niall’s bad mood – he’d frankly forgotten he was even in a bad mood the second he’d heard his old friend’s voice – returns with a vengeance. “Oh, oh yeah…Living the absolute dream out here.”

“Sounds like it.” Liam is obviously unconvinced. He knows Niall’s sarcasm well.

“No, I don’t know," Niall concedes. "I think I just need to get out of the city for a while. Clear my head, get over some things, you know, stupid stuff.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking, too, actually," Liam laughs, his familiar chuckle ringing clearly through the speaker. "What kind of stuff?”

“Not important. So, where are you now? Back in England, then?”

“That’s actually why I’m calling,” Liam says finally, with a small air of bravado. Niall is suddenly anxious; he almost feels like he knows what’s coming. (Don’t fucking ask him how he knows, okay, he just does.)

Liam’s next words are lifted up with his smile. “I’m moving up north, man, out to the country. Cheshire. Back up where you used to live, actually.”

Niall’s mouth drops open of its own accord, even though he fucking knew it.

And he’s suddenly kind of in that mind space of fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck no. Don’t do it Niall. Don’t fucking say it. You’re supposed to be over this, don’t fucking ask, don’t you dare fucking ask.

He asks.  
   
 ---  
   
“Anything else?”

Raising his bushy, brown eyebrows, the young guy behind the counter looks expectant. He has a pinched face, with squinty eyes and a square jaw that's got some stubble on it, and he seems a bit tired, but all around kind and vaguely handsome. Harry realizes hasn’t seen him before.

The man must be new around town because when Harry looks away from the rack of chewing gum on the check-out counter that he’d been aimlessly staring at – no one ever asks him questions so this had come as a surprise – he sees the man smiling amiably down at him, with not even a small trace of that maddening sympathy in his hazel eyes.

Harry is going to respond, but loses track for a minute when his eye catches the packs of cigarettes that are lined up against the wall behind the counter. One brand in particular is on sale, bright orange discount stickers covering the label, and the plastic wrapping is sparkling under the fluorescent lights. He sees enough of the packaging to know that he knows that label, the one with the camel on, and he feels the instinctive need to buy a pack - not for him, he doesn't like them, but-

“Anything?” the guy asks once more. His thick, distinct brogue brings Harry's eyes back onto him, and the cashier cocks his head to the side inquisitively.

And now that Harry's really focusing on him, he peers at the man through his eyelashes, pretty shaken, because – well, no one’s talked to him like that for a while now. He's not sure how to respond.

Elevator jazz is playing over the speakers, amidst their short silence.

Harry glances at the cashier's nametag and sees it says “Liam.” It’s a decent name, he thinks vaguely. Solid, plain, responsible-sounding.

“No, thanks, Liam.” Harry doesn't look at the cigarettes again and takes his single grocery bag from the counter, attempting a forced smile in appreciation. It turns out more of a grimace than anything and Liam looks a little confused.

“Come again!” he can hear the man say as he shuffles out the automatic doors and back onto the street. But Harry doesn’t bother looking back and pretends he hasn’t heard the friendly voice. Because for some reason, he doesn’t want the man to see his empty smile in return.

\---  
   
You see, the reason Niall Horan didn’t want to ask Liam Payne what he ended up asking anyway is because Harry Styles lent Niall a pencil once on the twenty-first of May in 1999, at exactly ten thirty-seven in the morning in Mrs. Blackwell’s year one class.

Niall has been in love ever since.

He doesn't know why, but it happened, okay, so that's that.

And when Niall tried to join the football team when he was seven years old because he’d heard Harry Styles was going to be the goalie – but then found out that he’d signed up too late and the list of players had already been chosen – well, he could at least go to every single game and watch Harry playing on the school field while he sat on his favorite limb in his favorite tree (hidden behind its leaves), which just so happened to stand right behind the goal.

And when Niall was eleven years old, and had eventually realized that watching your crush secretly from a tree was a little bit weird and so had settled on sneaking glances at him from across the classroom instead - well, he was teased by a couple of Harry’s friends but that was okay too because Harry had told them to stop and had helped Niall up from the ground when they’d pushed him over and had smiled at him, and shook his hand, and introduced himself.

And when Niall was thirteen, and breaking out, and had braces and a lanky figure and had asked to sit out in gym class once because he didn't want to have to play rugby — well, he was about to be teased about that, too, but it was alright because Harry had whispered to him to pretend that he was sick and offered to walk him to the nurse's office, and stayed with him the whole period.

And then when Niall left their little village for university when he was eighteen and Harry went off to Oxford to study law and neither of them ever really spoke again — though they’d never really spoken all that much in the first place, to be fair, because Harry was popular and he was not — Niall was okay about that, too. Because he’d wait it out; he’d see him again, somehow, somewhere. Harry Styles. He could be patient for Harry Styles.

And Niall graduated university (with honors and a modest degree in engineering and a really clingy girlfriend who he’d accidentally ended up dumping over the phone) when he heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that Harry Styles was moving to London with his musician boyfriend to be a lawyer — or something. And Niall immediately decided that, you know what, London is a really great place for an engineer to find a job, too.

But when Niall found out once he got to London that Harry Styles had actually decided that the best place to pursue law was actually back in their small childhood village up north called Holmes Chapel, where he and his musician boyfriend could also live together and maybe start a family because – oh yeah, his boyfriend had proposed even though he was only twenty-three at the time and Harry twenty-one – yeah, when that happened, Niall decided that it had been sixteen years of nothing (well, except for that one time when they were both about fifteen and they almost sort of maybe might have kissed because Harry had maybe looked at him differently for a couple seconds and had very possibly moved his head a little closer and almost possibly maybe thought about brushing their lips together for a second had it not been for his mother coming and asking how their sociology project was coming along). And he couldn’t be patient any longer. So he just stopped.

He stopped thinking about Harry (well, he tried) and he decided to stay in London and start his life. Move on.

No longer would he wait for…well, he wasn’t really waiting for anything in the first place. But no longer would he hope that just being geographically near Harry Styles would somehow make the friendly green-eyed boy notice him.

(He still hoped.)

But that’s okay because he would never do anything about it anymore. He’d get the job in London (he didn’t), he’d find a good girlfriend (never happened), he’d find some nice friends (nope), and he’d find a comfortable apartment to live in (whoops, not that either).

But all that’s okay too because at least he would never do anything about Harry Styles, not anymore. He’d admired from afar, but there was nothing there, and he had to forget the thing he’d made up in his head.

(He didn’t forget.)

Not at all.

So on he moved, back to Holmes Chapel.

\---  
   
Harry shuts the door behind him and sets the milk bottle down on the counter. The rustling of the plastic bag seems too loud in the small room, and he sighs, putting his hands on the counter and leaning over and closing his eyes.

See, Harry’s problem is that he knows he could be happy but he isn’t and he doesn’t know why and that just makes him sadder.

Well, not sad, he's not sad, not really, he’s clinically depressed, but there’s no reason for it, so. Sad.

Harry could be smiling for real, he knows he should be — because for god’s sake there’s nothing wrong with him — but he isn’t. Just isn't. And he can remember that he was different, once, from this shell-thing that he is now; you know, he can remember that only a few years ago (but was it really years now?) people knew him for lame jokes, for that big goofy smile he had that showed all his teeth, and had talked about him because of how kind he was, how smart, how confident, had looked at him simply because he was just kind of nice to look at and not because he’s a bit bitter and a lot tired.

And Harry knows he’s waiting for nothing. That weird anticipation he feels all the time is just the medication he’s on, probably. Whatever he’s hoping for is an impossible thing that probably isn’t the best thing to hope for, but Harry also knows he will never, ever stop hoping for it.

And that is what stops him from being content. Happy. He’s missing something, wants it back. He thinks. Maybe. Perhaps. Probably not, though.

He shoves his hands off the counter and walks unwillingly back to the mess he’d left that morning.

Picking up a few pieces of what had once been his steaming red mug and is now just a few jagged pieces of pottery, he immediately slices the pad of his index finger with the rough edge of the broken-off handle. This nearly sends him over the edge for absolutely no reason, and, breathing heavily through his nose and feeling a little bit like I-can’t-take-this-anymore, he drops everything all back onto the floor and stands up. He wipes his hands on his patched jeans.

He’d clean it up tomorrow, he thinks dismissively, unemotionally, as he wipes his bleeding finger on his sweater and unintentionally adds to the obscure collection of stains already there.

Or maybe in a couple years.  
   
 ---  
   
“Pretty weird day,” Liam declares, flopping down onto the pullout couch in his flat. “People in your old town are weird.”

The pull-out sheets are in a mess, all bunched up, and the pillows are strewn across the floor, but that doesn’t stop him from jumping on top of the spring-coiled mattress and flicking on the television and tossing aside the morning newspaper that’s lying on top of the remote. The open Holmes Chapel Herald falls sadly to the floor, folding over and closing itself.

A boyish laugh comes from inside his kitchen, along with the pouring of some cereal. “What happened?”

“This kid where I work,” says Liam distractedly. He flips through a couple channels and finally settles on some boring cooking-show-thing. “Came in, didn’t buy anything but some milk,” he explains. “I don’t know. Doesn’t sound weird when I say it, but he spent like twenty minutes just staring at things.”

“Yeah?” The voice in the kitchen is light and a bit too casual. “What’d he look like?”

“Niall,” Liam says, rolling his eyes because he already knows what the blonde boy’s thinking. “What’s your obsession with that guy, anyway?” There’s a faint cry of ‘I’m not obsessed!’ in the next room over, but Liam keeps right on talking. “I don’t know, maybe it was him. But I’ve never seen him in this apartment block. And he didn’t exactly look like the hottest kid on the block, if you know what I mean, sorta like what you said, but not really…”

“Did he look happy?” the blonde boy asks anxiously, hobbling back into the room with one hand balancing a bowl of cereal and the other trying to shove some sweatpants up his bare legs. He's clothing himself — he'd been wearing boxers all day after he'd gotten the morning paper — purely for Liam's benefit, but the boy isn't even looking. Niall's next words are a bit muffled due to the spoon in his mouth. “Was he with anyone?”

“No, he was by himself,” Liam mumbles, watching intently as the lady on the television pours the fudge mix into a saucepan on the stove.  A quick knock on the head by Niall's knee brings him back to earth and he looks up. “He was kind of a mess, really. Real tired.”

Niall scrunches his nose, putting the cereal bowl down on the coffee table and continuing to struggle with his pants.

“Maybe I never saw him after all. Was he like I described? Brown hair, green eyes, tall and fit, no?”

“Oh, that looks awesome. Do you think we have any fudge mix in the kitchen somewhere?”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Hello, Liam, I do think I asked you a question…”

“Well,” Liam thinks slowly, “I mean, I guess you could say the guy could be fit if he cleaned up a little…” his eyes trail toward the television, his taste buds clearly wanting, “but I don’t know what’s so special about him, to be honest — that is, if it was him — which I’m not sure it even was.” Liam’s enjoying drawing this out as long as possible, judging from the small smirk on his face. Then an eyebrow quirks up as he thinks back. “And no big smile, by the way. You said he usually has a big smile, didn’t you? This morning.”

“Just answer me, yes or no,” Niall groans, finally pulling up his sweatpants and tying the string. “Do you think it was Harry or don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Liam finally laughs, conceding. “I’m pretty sure it was. From what you’ve said about him, anyway. But why d’you care so much? You only ever mentioned his name today. He was your old school friend, right?”

Niall doesn’t answer this, only pops a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and sits down on the recliner, hiding a small smile.

Then again, Liam hadn’t really expected him to explain anything about it anyway. Because when his friend had found out that he was moving to Holmes Chapel a few weeks ago, Niall had been at his hotel room in London the very next day with a backpack and no explanation whatsoever other than “I think we should room together for a while!”

He has the sudden suspicion that maybe this “Harry” is the reason why.  
   
 ---  
   
It’s Monday, and Harry’s getting ready for the worst thing known to humankind. Work.

Sometimes he forgets that he has an actual important job that requires him to be an actual functional human being every once in a while, but surprisingly today isn’t one of those days. He’s actually awake and thinking and, of all things, running a bit early. But he’s still managed to dress completely inappropriately for the office in skinny jeans and a hoodie, and his hair isn’t exactly, um, washed. The dent in his curls from his pillow is still visible.

Right now he’s listening to someone rant on the other end of his phone.

“I don’t know why you won’t just leave that town, Styles,” he hears his friend, Nick saying. “Like, I dunno, maybe you could fly out and see me and we could go somewhere, do something fun. See the Hollywood sign – haven’t actually done that yet – or just see the sights, maybe…maybe you’d meet someone, I don’t know. Um – hey quit it, Josh! – because I just want you to be happy, mate. Cheer up, you know, go out and do stuff again like we used to, even though I’m – Josh, stop, that’s my playlist! Right, sorry about that.”

His best friend’s voice is near incomprehensible and it’s painfully obvious he’s incredibly busy, and Harry’s lip twitches when he imagines Nick running around with the phone to his ear and his hands flying out to catch one of his coworkers while they’re trying to run the radio show in L.A. Harry’s going to respond, to laugh at him or – but then the message ends and it’s quiet again.

Harry’s eyes fall flat once more and are inexpressive as he presses a finger down on the “save.” He’s done this many times before.

Approximately four hundred and sixty-three times before, really, because he hasn’t actually gotten a call from Nick Grimshaw in about that many days. He’d never responded to this message, for some reason, and now he doesn’t think he can. It’s a bit too late. He shuffles away from his phone charging on the bed and towards his waiting tea on the kitchen counter.

Picking up a different white mug than the one he usually uses, which is now in pieces in the trash, he shuffles over to the window, his hands covering the horrendously punny quote that's painted on in swirly letters. ('Without music life would B Flat!’) Harry had been begged not to buy it, he really had, but nothing could stop him.

The morning sun is trying to peek over the horizon but isn’t quite making it, with too many thin clouds stretching across the sky and blanketing the light. The windows of the flat, covered in dewdrops, glisten for a couple seconds and then return to their natural gray.

He sits down and stares at the wall (again), his unruly, greasy hair pushed back into a beanie. He’s already starting to feel it again: the stinging behind his eyes, the pulling in his chest. The goose bumps rising on his skin and the quiet swell in his eardrums. He doesn’t think anything triggered it this time but he’s already resigned himself to it, he’s already sort of given in, even if he doesn't know why it keeps happening. He’s just hoping it’ll be over soon.

And he’s thinking he can smell the cologne again, but maybe that’s because he’s wearing a different shirt from usual. (It was in his closet. It must have been Nick’s before he moved to America.)

And then there’s a knock on his door. But Harry only laughs at himself this time, for the instinctive jump of his muscles, for the hand that’s already loosening around the mug. This time, though, he stays put.

That is, until there’s another knock. Slowly, he sets the mug down on the table and stands up, wrapping one arm around himself as he walks guardedly toward the door.

Before he even gets there, though, he hears a pattering of feet hurrying down the hall and, peeking his eye through the peephole, he thinks he catches the same glint of blonde hair he’d seen a few weeks ago turning the corner and vanishing from his sight.

He wonders vaguely why that head of hair is familiar to him, but then gives up after a few seconds and pads across the floor again to lie down on the couch.

It’s Monday, yes, and he has work, yes, but he doesn’t even bother to call in sick to his firm today.

They never have any real cases, anyway. He won’t be missed.

Slowly, he falls back asleep.  
   
 ---  
   
Oh, fucking fuck. As Niall would say.

It’s now been a month and it’s May, nearly June, and Niall is still living with Liam. Sleeping on the couch. Taking up his entire apartment.

Which would be great, you know, because he loves his friend, he really does, he’s great, they lived together for two years at uni and they usually know what buttons not to press and all that, but Niall doesn’t even have a job yet. Not a real one, anyway. He doesn’t really think tractor operator at a local farm exactly qualifies for someone who has a degree in sound engineering.

And you know, at least Liam’s manager of the grocery store now. There are only two other workers there, but that’s not important.

And the crazy thing is that Niall’s actually smart; Liam knows he is, and someone like Niall being a tractor operator just doesn’t make sense. The boy’d never say it himself, but Niall was top of their graduating class in university and was genuinely voted ‘most likely to be successful,’ and everyone always, always loved him and thought he was hilarious. I mean, the kid could have at the very least applied to work at the auto-body shop in town. Seeing that he is an engineer and all.

So Liam doesn’t really know what he’s missing here – what made this boy just up and leave the city without a moment’s notice and move with him back out to Cheshire. Like, he thought it had been because of that Harry guy. He really thought that was it, really did. He thought he’d figured it out.

But after that one conversation about seeing him at the grocery store, Niall never mentioned him again. Not even the odd question: nothing. Didn’t look for him, or search him up. Just, in Liam’s eyes, forgot about him. Completely and totally.

So he’s beginning to wonder why the kid even came.

At least Liam went to the country because he wanted to be in the country. Wanted the peace and quiet and shit. But Niall just isn’t happy here.

Not unhappy, really, but just not…happy.

So Liam doesn’t really know what to do, because Liam’s just one of those people who doesn’t know how to really handle other people’s emotional…things. You know, maybe he’ll kick Niall out in a couple weeks or something if he didn't listen to him and get that auto-body job.

Ah, fuck.

\---

He clicks the vacuum off and stops. Did he just? …No.

He clicks the vacuum on again and shakes his head.

But then it’s there again. Was that?

Forget about it. Christ, it’s nothing different from the last time this happened.

He shuffles over to the counter and starts organizing the contents of the drawer instead, but he hears it more urgently this time. His mouth twists into a scowl. Ignore it. Don’t go over there, don’t get annoyed, don’t.

But now there’s a fourth knock on Harry’s door and, yeah, okay, he’s starting to get a little goddamn annoyed.

(Which is nice, he supposes, because it’s kind of the most emotion he’s felt in a while. Besides the, you know, the tears. Um.)

But he’s getting annoyed because the last two times he’s opened his door in the past month because he’s heard knocking, there’s been no one there.

Like, why in the hell.

It’s making him go literally insane. A genuine possibility.

If ripping out his hair were an emotion, that’s what he’s feeling as he huffs his way to the door this time around, dropping whatever thing he'd been holding into the top drawer of the kitchen counter and slamming it shut.

“If you’re going to run away again, let me know so I don’t have to actually walk all the way over there!”

Okay, so his plan to not get aggravated kind of threw itself out the window.

But he pulls open the door, ready to either glare at or chase down the culprit once and for all, when he finds himself staring down at a pair of big, wide-open eyes.

Which are blue. Blue eyes. And dirty blonde hair.

“Um.”

“Um...”

“Are you–?”

“Sorry I’ve been–.”

“You’re the one–?”

“Yeah, that was me–.”

“Um, I’m–.”

“I’m Niall, sorry. Hi.”

Harry leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms, staring curiously at the face before him. “Have I seen you before?”

“Um, maybe, I mean, I live next door–.”

“No, I mean before that. Hold on,” he says, “did you say Niall?”

“Niall, yeah. I’ve really, I need to, um. I need to go, I’ve actually got to go…now.”

“Hey, wait a second! You’re not…wait. Are you Niall Horan?”

For some reason, Harry feels a genuine urge to smile when he remembers the name.

“Um.” The boy looks incredibly flustered, and his cheeks are going so red it’s actually reaching his ears. “Yes?” He clears his throat. “I mean, yes.”

Harry shakes his head. “God, Niall Horan. I haven’t seen you since we were — sorry, you probably don’t even remember me, do you? I’m Harry. Harry Styles, remember me? We went to school together? We did a project together.”

“Oh. Oh, yup.”

A streak of realization crosses Harry’s face when he sees the tight, thin-lipped expression of the boy across from him. “Oh, shoot. Sorry. My friends always bullied you, didn’t they? I forgot about that.” He laughs, and the sound is almost foreign to him but not altogether unpleasant. “You probably hate me.”

“Um, I, um, don’t, no.”

“Good. So,” Harry says, half-grinning, which is — weird, “what are you doing back in Holmes Chapel, then?”

“I, um. I don’t know.” Niall bites his lip. “Didn’t like my job. But hey, I’m, uh, happy to see you, Harry.”

“Me, too!” Harry says. He really means it, too, because for the past few minutes he’s felt almost like he did back when he was seventeen and still in school and still happy, and even realizing that he’s feeling like this does little to dampen his mood. “So why’d you always leave every time you knocked on my door, huh? That was you, right?”

“Yeah, I, um,” he stutters, “see, I thought you lived here and I thought I'd, but I had, you know, things to…I couldn’t stick around, annoy you…” For some reason, Niall’s keeping his words to a minimum.

“You couldn’t annoy me, Niall.” (That was sort of a lie because Harry was pretty pissed at the knocking a few minutes ago, but now that he knows who it was, it couldn’t be more true.)

“Oh. Uh, thanks.”

“So, did you want to–?”

“Maybe I’ll just – what?”

“I was gonna ask if you wanted to come in. I was just…” Harry turns his head back to look at his apartment because he genuinely can’t remember what he was just doing. He spots the vacuum, along with the disaster zone that is his flat when he’s cleaning — drawers open and rugs turned over and stuff scattered everywhere. “Vacuuming,” he grins, casually shifting to hide the mess. “Maybe get a coffee, then? Or a drink?”

“I, I, coffee?”

“Yeah, or we could do something else if you want.” Seeing Niall’s expression, he pauses. “Sorry, what am I saying? You don’t have to do anything with me. I just wanted to catch up, that’s all, but it’s already late and I’m sure–.”

“No, I really–.”

Harry pushes his words out quickly. “You don’t have to.”

“No, I mean, I’d like to go with you. Harry, I’d like to go to coffee.” Niall says this definitively, squaring his shoulders a bit.

“Would you?” Harry’s suddenly more excited than he probably should be, his eyes dancing, because this is company, he thinks — human company, a person who actually wants to spend time with him and who doesn’t know that he’s an utter crap pile of sadness yet.

Fresh eyes are what he sees when he looks at Niall then — who’s shuffling his shoes and scratching his arm and blinking a lot — fresh blue eyes, tokens of a blissful change to his normality, blue eyes thrown straight into his life with just a quick rap of knuckles against wood!

“I’ll just grab my wallet, then.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He leaves Niall standing at the door, and he doesn’t see the boy’s knees trembling beneath him as his blue eyes watch a bob of wavy hair disappear into the depths of his flat.

\---  
   
The din of the pub is like white noise, the football game on the televisions overhead and the conversations of people around him mixing into a distant swell of life.

(Most things are usually white noise to Harry, because he usually blocks out the sound and turns it into a quiet mumble because it’s easier that way, but this is different.)

Across the table is Niall, who’s trailing his fingers along the glass of the cool beer in front of him, and that’s where Harry’s entire concentration is. On that boy. For the first time, he doesn’t even realize that people are kind of staring.

He continues their conversation.

“Why were you looking at me like that, then, that first day you came here,” he asks, resting his dimpled cheek in the palm of his hand, “if you were happy to see me?”

Niall clears his throat and looks a little uncomfortable. He adjusts the collar of his denim button-down and then rubs a hand across his nose. “I couldn’t believe it, is all,” he finally mumbles. “You know, that I found you.” He can’t meet Harry’s eyes when he says that. “That you’d come bursting out of a door and be, like, right there. I didn’t even believe it was you until he said he saw you at the store the next day.”

“Liam?”

“Yeah, Liam.”

“I can’t believe you came back to see me. Was that the only reason?” He knows he should find this weird, but he doesn't, not at all. It's sweet, really.

“No, no, um. Well, pretty much, yeah.”

Harry laughs, enough to raise a few eyebrows at the bar, and a hushed whispering ensues when they all realize who it is and whom he’s with. Harry can just make out the words ‘another boy,’ when he realizes he doesn’t actually care and instead averts his eyes to Niall.

Because he doesn’t know what they’re talking about and right now he’s fine, remember? Yeah, he thinks he’s pretty okay right now. Happy’s not close to the right word, but he’s coasting. Like he’s not struggling in the water for the moment.

Niall’s to thank for that.

His lovely old acquaintance, his god-sent gift to make him smile for the first time in a very long time. Sipping from his glass, he winks and turns his lips up into a coy smile.

And Niall smiles back.

And Harry starts to think that they could, very possibly, be lovely old acquaintances again.

  ---  
   
“You’re what?”

“Just next door. He asked me yesterday, and I, uh, thought I would.”

“Harry Steiner?”

“Styles, yeah.”

“I didn’t know you knew him that well.” Liam’s hiding his glee behind a cool, surprised face as he stirs the vegetable stir fry on the stove. Niall's sitting at the table, futzing with a glass. “Cool, okay. If that’s what you want?”

“Yeah, I think it is. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, no, no, no, no, no. Do it. It sounds fun, he’s seems nice. And I was actually thinking of going back to Australia, to be honest. In a few months.”

Niall drops his glass and it thumps on the table. “Really? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Lou called, he doesn’t really like America, so we thought we’d try Australia again and then travel.”

“That’s crazy, Liam. Good for you.”

“Thanks, mate — and you’re definitely moving in with Harry? You’ve only been hanging with him again for like three weeks. He might’ve changed.”

“Mate, yeah.” Niall nods. “I think I’m gonna go for it. He said he had he had a couch open, and he’s kind of, he’s just really good. You know? I think he’s good for me.”

Liam understands. “He seems like it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you’ve been — smiling more. Since you’ve been talking to him again.”

Niall hides a bashful grin. “Hey, um. Liam. Thanks for letting me crash here the past like — two months; Jesus, is it already that? Wow. I know I haven’t been the best roommate.”

“No, man, it’s fine. Just like old times. But, hey, visit me once in a while, would you?”

“I’ll only be down the hall, Payno.”

“I know, but, I don’t know." Liam takes the pan off the burner and pours in a generous amount of soy sauce. “When I’m in Australia, we have to keep in touch. And you and Harry — hope you get along and everything.”

“I think we should, yeah.”

“Need help getting your stuff together?”

“Thanks, man.”

\---  

When Harry wakes up, there’s a soft snoring outside his room.

It’s quite strange. He’s still not very used to hearing a breathing pattern other than his own.

Nice, though. Steady. A paced rhythm that he sort of starts to unconsciously follow.

His eyes blink lazily open, his cheek pressed up against the pillow and half-closing his left eyelid, and he sniffs a bit to clear his nose. The covers are pulled up to his chin and he’s in nothing but boxers, the hazy morning light lighting the tips of his toes that are visible at the bottom of his sheets.

It’s warm and he doesn’t quite want to get out of bed yet, but his clock is telling him that it’s nearly nine and ticking. Saturday, and he’s got nothing planned, but he knows if he spends just one day in bed then he’ll probably spend the next day doing the same thing and he really doesn’t want to fall back into doing that again.

So he gets up, a little reluctantly.

His hair is sticking straight up in places, sleepies in the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t bother checking his reflection and instead heads slowly (he’s still little more than sleep-walking) toward the kitchen, rubbing his head.

A sleeping Niall is taking up the space on the couch, which he still isn’t entirely used to, so he settles on making them both a cup of tea and then leaning against the counter, occasionally looking over at the boy for any signs of him stirring.

Niall’s been staying with him long enough now for Harry to know that the boy will probably be up in another few minutes. (Partly because the sound of any activity in the kitchen whatsoever will reach his sleeping ears like nothing else will.)

Harry’s standing behind the counter, pouring them both some black tea (two scoops of sugar for Niall and one for himself), when there’s a loud groan from the couch.

Harry can’t quite help but look down and grin fondly into his teacup.

“Up then, are you?” he says mildly, his own voice still scratchy with sleep.

Another groan, and the boy rolls over on the couch and buries his head under the pillow with a reluctant mumble of “Morning, Haz.”

Harry picks up the two cups and goes to sit down beside Niall on the pull-out, sipping his own drink carefully as he shakes the boy’s exposed arm. “Up, you twat,” he says gently, smirking.

Niall shivers at his touch, and Harry feels a bit bad so pulls the covers up higher as he flicks the television on low.

This earns him another groan, but a more defeated one this time. The boy finally sits up and takes the cup from Harry’s waiting hand.

“Thanks. Put some clothes on.”

Harry freely ignores this. “Two sugars.”

“Mmm.”

They sit back against the couch and watch television for a few minutes, the bright mindless colors of Saturday morning cartoons blinking happily past their sleepy eyes.

“D’you want to do something today?”

They’re both still staring at the television, only breaking away for a quick second to gaze at each other.

“Like what?” Niall’s already almost drained his tea and his stomach growls quite loudly. His cheeks go pink at the sound.

“I don’t know,” Harry drawls, putting his cup down on the wooden floor and flopping back against Niall’s side, poking the boy’s rumbling stomach with his finger. “Just feels like I should.”

“Do something?”

“Yeah.”

“We could go for a walk.”

“Mm.”

“A drive?”

“No car.”

“I’ve got a car.”

“Don’t really like cars, to be honest.”

“Alright, then.” Niall shifts his weight so his arm is more comfortable for Harry’s head. “What else is there?”

“How about…a picnic.”

“That does include walking, you know.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, let’s go for a picnic.”

“…Okay.”

Harry snuggles farther down and rests his head against Niall’s chest, and Niall definitely isn’t hyperaware that Harry might now be able to hear the slightly uneven rhythm of his heart.

“Weren’t you…getting up?”

“Mm.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the tired one.”

“You’re comfy.”

“Get off,” he teases gently.

“Mm.”

(And every ‘mm’ that Harry mumbles into his shirt is definitely not making Niall want to reach down and gently touch his hair like a soft, small kitten.)

“Don’t you want to go?”

“In a minute.”

Niall sighs and rolls his eyes. “We do this every day.”

“It’s nice, though, isn’t it.” Harry says this like it isn’t a question, like he’s not even really considering Niall would disagree. His head slips a little farther down to Niall’s stomach, his lips now squished up beneath his face and pressing an accidental kiss against Niall’s belly button through the cotton.

“Come on,” Niall says, voice almost trembling. He feels Harry’s eyelashes batting shut against his shirt, and his hand (involuntarily, of course) drapes itself over Harry’s bare waist gently. “Wake up,” he whispers, more like a lullaby to shush the boy back to sleep.

This sort of becomes their Saturday morning routine.

Sometimes, Harry falls asleep next to Niall the night before these mornings, dropping to sleep late at night on the pull-out that is most definitely smaller than his own bed.

There are countless mumbled conversations consisting of ‘I should go to bed now,’ and ‘Maybe in two minutes,’ and Niall doesn’t entirely mind how much the boy kicks or how much room he takes up with all of his lanky limbs or just how big he is and how Niall tends to wake up half-way off the mattress. Because, well, he is starting to frequently wake up to Harry’s warmth beside him and on top of him (his arms are usually wrapped around Niall’s waist) and all around him.

(But they aren’t a thing, of course. Niall doesn’t even think the thought has crossed Harry’s mind.)

And when Niall goes to work, when he’s nearly out the door with his Wellington boots squeaking on the kitchen tile, he usually feels a warm hand on his shoulder. It’s Harry’s, always Harry’s hand, the boy trying to convince him to stay with a pouty look and a jutted out lip and a throaty morning voice asking him to ‘stay’ that pulls something deep in the lower section of Niall’s stomach.

Harry has his own job, of course, and Niall’s been trying to get him to go more regularly, but he still doesn’t like to go and always tries to find ways of convincing Niall to skip with him and maybe take a lovely, lazy little nap on the couch like he is so fond of doing.

And sometimes Niall gives in. Usually not — (those days take quite a lot of willpower) — but sometimes he does.

And sometimes he thinks those days that he gives in will be the days that something shifts in Harry’s brain, and that he’ll notice him, actually realize that Niall is there and available and willing, for the first time since that one day when they were still in school and they almost, possibly, maybe, might have kissed, sort of, had it not been for Harry’s mom. And when Harry starts to accidentally spill his heart a little bit, in that space between sleep and daydream, between reality and thoughts, Niall sometimes thinks that those days will be the days. When he’s just a little bit too honest and his eyes are just a little bit less guarded and a little bit too sad.

But the days go by and then the weeks, and then the months start passing, too, and Niall is left without his wish. He knows he should probably get used to it.

\---

“What’s that?”

“What’s what? Oh, that.”

“A guitar pick? I didn’t know you played.”

“I don’t.”

Niall sends him a look and pops up off the counter and walks over to it.

“Pearl, is it? Nice.” He goes to pick it up, talking aimlessly about how he used to play himself and how he really should pick it up again, and –

“Leave it.”

There’s an edge to Harry’s voice that he’s never heard before, or possibly never noticed, and Niall is confused. He stops.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just leave it. Where it is.” Harry pauses. “Please,” he adds as an afterthought, a little more gently. Niall searches his face, struggling to find something that will make him understand, but he finds nothing and simply abides.

This incident is forgotten.

\---

“Damn, where’s that knife.”

Niall’s mumbling things, opening and closing every drawer in the kitchen in his crazed mission to find the bread knife, sweat nearly dripping from his brow and a blue cleaning cloth tossed over his shoulder. Harry’s still at work, staying overtime because there’s been some car accident or something with a bunch of stubborn people involved, and someone’s apparently died in the hospital and no one has really got a clear understanding of the law in that office except for him, so Niall wants to make him dinner.

Because he’s been more stressed than usual, and Niall doesn’t like to see that crease crop up between Harry’s eyebrows like it does when he’s stressed. And, lately, it’s been cropping up. Also, Niall doesn’t think he’s made them dinner even once in the entire time he’s lived there. (Really because Harry’s cooking is just that good. When he remembers dinner, at least.)

The French bread is in the oven and the pasta is bubbling on the stove and he’s kind of searching around frantically because Harry should be home any minute and the sauce isn’t even ready yet, when he opens the last drawer in the kitchen and finds it tucked behind a small box of what he thinks at first glance is matches. (It’s not, they’re really not, and Niall realizes this about halfway through their dinner.)

But Niall’s a little bit too frustrated with himself to care about what they are right now because, dear god, he’s been staying with Harry long enough that he should know where the bread knife is by now, and he’s just wasted three whole minutes.

The door swings open when Niall’s draining the pasta. He curses in surprise and burns himself with the scalding water.

“What’s this?” Harry asks, amused and immediately dropping his things on the counter to go and help. Niall notices with an impressed eye that he’s actually bothered to wear a suit for once.

“I just wanted to make you dinner,” he grumbles, nursing his hand with cool water under the sink as Harry finishes up dishing out the pasta onto their plates. “Surprise you.”

“Thought you’d blindside me with marinara, did you?” Harry laughs, half at his own joke.

“I was trying to be a good roommate!” Niall cries, trying to whack him with the cloth that was over his shoulder; but Harry’s too quick and grabs his wrist instead.

“You are.”

“You are what?”

“A good roomie.”

“A great roomie?”

“A good roomie.” Harry winks and lets go of his arm. “Well, don’t just stare at me,” Niall had, in fact, been staring with an open mouth and probably some pretty obvious heart eyes because he had just winked at him while wearing a SUIT, “come on, let’s not let this amazing-looking dinner go to waste.”

Niall manages a sort of strangled, “Okay,” and follows him dazedly.

\---

Yeah, okay. He knows he shouldn't be, but he's looking through Harry's things.

The curiosity really only came about last month when he'd found that pack of Camel cigarettes in the top drawer of the kitchen counter. Which had been the thing that he thought was a box of matches but really wasn’t at all.

Harry doesn't smoke. Ever. Interesting.

And then a couple days later, when he'd been searching for some extra toothpaste in the bathroom and Harry was already gone to work, he’d found a bottle of half used-up cologne on the shelf in the closet. Harry doesn't use cologne.

(Niall would know, what with all those nights that Harry had slept next to him on the couch; he smells like shampoo and mint and skin and loveliness and boy and nothing at all like cologne.)

Really only natural, then, that Niall assumed what any normal human being would assume.

That there was someone else. Someone, someone special — who wasn’t Niall even though Niall had kind of a little bit selfishly assumed that he was the only ‘someone’ in Harry’s life — that Harry had been keeping from him. Maybe that was what had been occupying Harry’s mind the nights they didn’t sleep on the couch together.

What's frustrating was that he wasn't even, you know, dating Harry so he couldn't confront him about it.  
        
He's searching through the closet now - don't get him wrong, he's feeling bad about it, it's just that that doesn't completely stop him from doing it anyway — when he finds a guitar case, shoved behind boxes and hidden by a jacket that isn't Harry's. (And then he remembers the guitar pick and how protective Harry had been about it and now his suspicions are doubling.)

In something that looks like silver nail polish, someone's painted a scripted 'Z' on the neck. He stops and feels his conspiracy cracking just a little bit. Because there's no mistaking whose that is.

Which, Niall thinks, is really weird.

He'd never asked or said a word of it to Harry, but he'd thought that musician and he had just broken up, had never married after all. He’d guessed from hearing a couple things around town when he was out without Harry that it had been a few years ago, pretty soon after they'd moved here. That Zayn had never expected Harry to actually say yes when he’d asked him to marry him.

But Zayn — well, he's not really sure, because he's never met him — but Harry’s ex-boyfriend never seemed the type to leave behind his guitar. And his jacket. (And, from the looks of it, a nice one.)

Delicately, he plucks the leather jacket off the top of the case, and a phone comes tumbling out of the breast pocket. Really? Niall thinks. No one in their right mind, even if they had left their boyfriend-slash-fiance in a fit of rage, would leave their phone behind. They'd come back for it — after a few days, at the most.

(And Niall can’t quite help the little pang of anger he feels his chest, because Harry could at least have just told him what he was doing all those nights when he said he wanted to ‘sleep alone.’)

He sets the jacket back on top of the guitar case and continues searching, quickly checking back over his shoulder to make sure Harry hasn't come back yet. Paranoia, maybe, but he really doesn't want to be found snooping around like this, even though he is a little bit mad. He slides his hands blindly along the top shelf of the bedroom closet and finds nothing but dust. Until.

As his fingers are curling around the end of the shelf, they catch on the edge of something. A crumpled, ripped something, that slips off the shelf and falls lightly onto Niall's head before he even realizes what's happened. Bouncing off his hair and onto the floor, he sees it's a piece of paper. An article from a newspaper, he guesses, because he thinks he sees a little bit of the words 'Holmes Chapel Herald' across the top.

It's so crumpled that he can only imagine the person who had thrown it up there had been a little bit in a fury when he'd crumpled it up in the first place, like he was trying to get rid of it and forget whatever had been written. He gently unfolds the fragile paper and takes a look at the headline.

Oh.

And his eyes can't stop staring.

Oh.  

\---  

It’s raining outside. A light drizzle, noticeable only by the quiet pattering on the windowpanes, but there’s a storm indoors.

“I don’t want to!”

“Come on, Harry, get up. Get up, come on,” Niall pleads softly, reaching out a hand. Harry hits it away and then quickly hides his hands again, curling tighter into himself and shaking on his bedroom floor.

“No,” Harry spits, voice low. There’s a noticeable trembling in his voice from his utter exhaustion — it's three in the morning — but his voice is firm and definite and a little angry.

“I’m just trying to help, I’m just trying–.”

“Stop it!” he shouts finally.

It’s his anniversary, or what should have been.

If it hadn’t, if it hadn’t, if you had please just listened — but Harry’s blocking everything out right now. He doesn’t know why he’s breaking down. He doesn’t remember he has a guitar in his closet, doesn’t remember why he always wants to buy someone cigarettes, can’t figure out who he is always expecting to see when he hears a knock on his door. Right now he’s just remembering a flash of anger and the slamming of a car door, repeating mercilessly in his head on a tortuous loop and not making any sense. Pangs of color and sound and people shouting and dancing and cigarettes and –.

“Stop what, Harry?”

“Just stop,” Harry growls, stuck inside his own head, “just stop, stop trying to help, stop trying to figure me out! Leave me alone! I want to be alone, get out! Get out!”

“Harry…calm down, okay? I know it’s hard — I know the day he…I know the day he, the day he left is the worst, but–”

But Harry hits him hard then, really hard, and he’s suddenly in a rage, and his mind feels like it’s holding back a flood of things he doesn’t want to know. “What are you talking about? Stop lying!”

He shoves Niall against the chest with a wild force, and there’s sounds of people groaning and waking up in confusion in the apartment next door.

“You’re lying! Stop it, he didn’t — stop it, stop talking! He didn’t leave!” And then he falters, his mental dam finally coming crashing down. His eyes go wild and he gasps the gasp that finally rips him open. “He’s coming back! I know he is, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, Zayn would never leave me, he loves me, we’re getting married, he-he, he…”

Niall tries fruitlessly to hold Harry’s forearms down.

“He did leave, and you have to accept it, you know, and you were doing a really good job, too, you’re doing really well at accepting it, you just need to calm down now — and, hey, I'm not leaving you, okay? I’m not gonna do that. I won’t do that to you. I’m not leav–,” but Harry’s arm breaks free and hits him in the chest again, winding him, bringing with it unintelligible shouts from Harry about ‘lies, everything.’

Niall continues on. “I’m not leaving you.”

He tries to look Harry in the eye, but the boy won’t allow it.

Harry collapses back onto the floor, shutting his eyes angrily and curling up and covering his ears in a last ditch attempt, whispering Zayn’s name. Niall sits there helplessly, awkwardly rubbing Harry’s shoulder and circling his thumb lightly across his shirt in the only soothing motion he knows. Harry starts to cry.

They sit there for a few minutes.

And then Harry chokes on a sob and he starts coughing, suddenly forgetting the fact that he’s angry and instead crawling up and wrapping his arms around Niall’s flustered, bruised form. Niall hugs him back, hesitantly.

Harry’s arms wrap tightly around him like he’s afraid that loosening his grip will make Niall disappear, too, and then his face is too close to Niall's and he sees a glint of something change in those dark green eyes and he doesn’t know what it is but then he's pushing his open mouth roughly and fast against Niall’s and he’s kissing him. Kissing him, all over, fervently, angrily, quickly, down his jaw and against his cheek and on the side of his nose, kissing him passionately like they are lovers, like this heated moment of emotion is one of passion and not of grief-stricken, utter emptiness — but that's only making him cry harder, every nudge and dip of Harry's lips toward Niall's bringing fresh sets of hot tears that slide down his cheek and mix with the wet of his lips. One of the hands that had twisted into Niall’s hair and had rubbed down Niall’s chest falls pointlessly to his side, the other going up to weakly attempt to caress Niall’s cheek one more time.

And Niall starts to haltingly and gently pull away, slowly, carefully, running a hand through Harry's messy hair.

Harry gives up then. His kisses peter pathetically out. He drops his head down to Niall's chest, moaning and curling up and grabbing him tightly, hiccuping on his sobs.

And, oh - Niall wants to just say it.

Because Harry is beautiful and doesn’t deserve this. Because he was kind and Niall will never forget that.

Because even though Harry’s almost-husband had ditched him and left him alone, so very alone, on their two-year anniversary and then went and died in a car crash that very same night, which Harry has entirely mentally blocked from his brain to the point that he can’t even remember it — and left him feeling worthless, and empty, and guilty, and unimportant, he is worth something to Niall.

Everything, really. It’s irrational and very, definitely true.

Harry’s well-being is important for Niall’s.

He sometimes thinks that Harry does know. Completely. About Zayn. That he's entirely aware. He was the one who had put that article up there, after all. That guitar pick is still untouched.

But it’s a couple of minutes later now and Niall’s still rubbing circles into Harry’s back and not saying anything, just wordlessly, sadly reveling in the warmth of the other boy’s skin and the realness of the fact that this is happening, Harry is in his arms, and why does it have to be this way.

And he drinks in the sound of his love’s breathing cutting unevenly through the silence, and he sort of starts to follow it himself.

Niall doesn’t completely believe in miracles, because, really, who does, but he thinks this may be the closest he or Harry will ever come.

A miracle that should have been.

Because he knows for sure that he could make Harry better. Not cured, but better. He knows he could. If only.

He feels the wet of Harry’s tears on his shoulder then, and there's an emptiness where they hit. He doesn't quite know why. 

But he doesn’t leave, he keeps his word. He stays. Even though there’s mucus dripping from Harry’s nose and onto Niall’s shoulder and his tears are splattered across his shirt and he’s gasping, and his face is all screwed up and blotchy and red and he’s crying for someone else, he’s missing someone else, Niall finds it impossible to leave someone who so obviously never deserves to be left alone.

And Niall can’t ever leave him alone.

He knows, because he’s tried. And failed, and ended up here.

And he could just laugh at himself then, because, well, Jesus. It’s been eighteen years now.

He doesn’t say anything, though — he never says it. He stays quiet. He knows Harry doesn’t think of him that way, never will. He knows what those kisses were, he knows. He’s sort of known a very long time.

He stays quiet so he can just stay. It’s funny how much he’ll do just to feel close and important to someone who doesn’t love him at all.

He knows he should probably get used to it.

Because Niall is going to stay. He’ll always stay.

He knows he probably shouldn't. 

It's quiet.


End file.
